title: Childhood height and birth weight in relation to future prostate cancer risk: a cohort study based on the copenhagen school health records register.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Adult height has been positively associated with prostate cancer risk. However, the exposure window of importance is currently unknown and assessments of height during earlier growth periods are scarce. In addition, the association between birth weight and prostate cancer remains undetermined. We assessed these relationships in a cohort of the Copenhagen School Health Records Register (CSHRR).
  
  
  METHODS
  The CSHRR comprises 372,636 school children. For boys born between the 1930s and 1969, birth weight and annual childhood heights-measured between ages 7 and 13 years-were analyzed in relation to prostate cancer risk. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI).
  
  
  RESULTS
  There were 125,211 males for analysis, 2,987 of who were subsequently diagnosed with prostate cancer during 2.57 million person-years of follow-up. Height z-score was significantly associated with prostate cancer risk at all ages (HRs, 1.13 to 1.14). Height at age 13 years was more important than height change (P = 0.024) and height at age 7 years (P = 0.024), when estimates from mutually adjusted models were compared. Adjustment of birth weight did not alter the estimates. Birth weight was not associated with prostate cancer risk.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The association between childhood height and prostate cancer risk was driven by height at age 13 years.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our findings implicate late childhood, adolescence, and adulthood growth periods as containing the exposure window(s) of interest that underlies the association between height and prostate cancer. The causal factor may not be singular given the complexity of both human growth and carcinogenesis.
authors.affiliation: Authors' Affiliations: Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, NIH, DHHS, Bethesda, Maryland; Institute of Preventive Medicine, Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg Hospital, The Capital Region; and The Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Michael B
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Cook
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gamborg
authors.forename: Julie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Aarestrup
authors.forename: Thorkild I A
authors.initials: TI
authors.lastname: Sørensen
authors.forename: Jennifer L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Baker
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001724:Birth Weight; D001827:Body Height; D002648:Child; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003718:Denmark / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012042:Registries; D012307:Risk Factors; D012572:School Health Services